Once the theme music starts playing a few minutes into the premiere of TNT’s “Dallas,” any viewer who was over the age of 10 in 1980s will be instantly transported back in time.

And for Patrick Duffy, Larry Hagman and Linda Gray, who reprise their roles from the 1978-1991 CBS drama in TNT’s relaunch, stepping back onto the set of the Southfork Ranch had the same effect.

“I think that, for me, it was a seamless time warp,” said Gray, who returns as Sue Ellen, the former wife of oil mogul JR Ewing (Hagman). “I can remember that last day on the set, and absolutely, if you said there was to be 20 years in between, I wouldn’t have believed that because to walk back on set and back onto Southfork and back on the set with my friends was a seamless transition. I didn’t feel an ending or a beginning. It was just like we seamlessly moved into the new series.”

In the 20 years since audiences last saw her, Sue Ellen has become even more powerful in Texas society and is eyeing a run for the governor’s mansion. Personally, she’s trying to reconnect with her and J.R.’s neglected son, John Ross (Josh Henderson).

John Ross wants to drill for oil on Southfork, which doesn’t sit well with J.R.’s benevolent brother, Bobby (Duffy), who now controls the ranch. But John Ross’s ambitious plan could give the ever-scheming J.R. the chance he needs to wrest control of Southfork back from hs baby bro.

Also starring in the new series are Brenda Strong as Bobby’s new wife and Jesse Metcalfe as Bobby’s son, Christopher.

All three of the returning actors seem to relish the chance to slip into their old cowboy hats again.

“I actually knew somewhere in my heart that we would never work together again,” Duffy said, “because the three of us, in my opinion, couldn’t come into a scene without everybody saying, ‘Oh, there’s J.R., Sue Ellen, and Bobby.’ So this is the best thing that could happen in my career life.”

Duffy was at the center of one of the original “Dallas’ ” most notorious plotlines. After his character was killed off in the spring of 1985, Duffy returned to the show a season later, when in the fall of 1986 viewers saw Bobby’s wife, Pam, walk in on him in the shower. Turns out the whole 1985-86 season, which many fans felt went off the rails creatively, was just one of Pam’s bad dreams.

[youtube UzlLofyPXyk]

Duffy said that shower reveal was a way for the show to get back to its roots, and he sees similarities in the TNT relaunch, comparing new producer Cynthia Cidre to former producer Leonard Katzman.

“It was his piece of brilliance to do the shower and bring the show back… to exactly what the kernel of its original success was and then start up again,” Duffy said. “And what Cynthia did in the script that we have now is she brought the cast and the new cast, which are grown-up versions of the old cast, back to that starting point of purity that made ‘Dallas’ what it was. Cynthia got it the same way Leonard got it.”

That magical “it” is some combination of back-stabbing schemes, back-scratching passion and all-around family melodrama that kept viewers tuning in to the original series for 14 seasons.

Hagman sees some off-screen similarities, too.

“When ‘Dallas’ was really hot, when it got going, we were in a major recession, and people couldn’t go out and get a babysitter and have dinner and go to a movie,” he said. “They couldn’t afford it. So they had to stay in on Friday nights and watch something… And here we are again.”